Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 01:11:51 +0100
From: Julian Obedient
Subject: Mutual Funds
Jay was tired. He was cranky. He did not have the energy, the will,
even the desire to exert himself. He felt the beginnings of some lousy
grippe settling in. All he was good for was to feel the ache in his
limbs.
His room was a closed-off section at one end of a long attic in Mitch
and Bill's house. It had a large double window that opened inwards.
Its ceiling had a very gentle slope. He could stand straight up and
even stretch his hands over his head in most parts of the room.
It was sparely but handsomely furnished. A good single bed, an oak
dresser with a marble top, two chairs: one, a brown leather club
chair, the other, his desk chair, and a desk. There was a built in
closet and a beautiful hand-woven Iranian carpet on the wood floor:
abstract, interweaving flowers, birds, and starry shapes in silver,
green, and red emerging from and falling into a deep field of midnight
blue.
The auburn moon was framed inside the field of the window. Jay had
swiveled in his chair a half circle from his books and his computer.
With his back to the desk he looked at the moon high above Manhattan,
hanging in the sky crowning the Brooklyn Bridge.
Pinned to the wall beside the window was a nearly poster-size picture
of Mitch standing in the sunlight on a Caribbean beach. He was
gorgeous and mesmerizing. He was not naked. He was in a black bikini
in the picture, full body, tan, solid, muscular, and defined,
standing, his back to the sea, with a blue sky supported by columns
of cumulus clouds floating above the horizon, above his broad
shoulders. Jay spent a good deal of time admiring that picture,
spacing out, lost in it.
Jay could always find himself though, and gather back his attention,
and get back to work, which is analyzing the performance of several
major corporations for a highly-regarded semi-annual mutual funds
report he wrote.
The bell rang. It was Mitch summoning him. He did not want to move.
Nevertheless, Jay stood up and went over to the speaker. Never yelling
towards the mouthpiece from a distance, but approaching close to it
and speaking softly, he said, Yes, sir.
Jay, get yourself together and present your ass down here in ten
minutes. The tone was not unfriendly; neither was it friendly.
Yes, sir, immediately sir, Jay said, forcing out the energy with which
he uttered the words.
It was time for a workout: push-ups, chin-ups, weights, crunches,
repetitions. He was going to have to function for at least an hour as
a well-oiled muscular machine, his body undergoing total discipline,
his mind undergoing total eclipse.
He stripped, stepped into a black spandex jock, loose nylon sweat
pants, cuffed to the ankles, also black, and put on leather athletic
shoes.
He sucked in a breath as he pinched each nipple with a small silver
ball claw. It wasn't just a workout he was going to have to go
through. It was a workout powered by a continuous pain signal. He
didn't want it, but once he gave himself to it, which he had no choice
but to do, he couldn't do without it. It was his strength.
As tired as he had been, he was suddenly mobilized.
He did not want to press the pins at the ends of the claw into his
nipples. But that was irrelevant. He was going to, and once he did,
the pain was a relief. He relaxed into the pain and felt it as a warm
gift.
Last, he put on a loose, sleeveless, top, also black. He generally
wore all black. When he raised his arms to get the shirt over his
head, stretching his pecs, the pins bit down on his nipples. He
exhaled and gave himself to it gratefully.
Downstairs, off the kitchen, in the room which they had built for
workouts (with an attached shower and sauna), Mitch was already doing
bench presses. Jay presented himself, standing at attention, waiting
to be recognized.
Jay watched as each muscle flexed when Mitch worked his body, each
muscle, each move more gracefully powerful than the last.
Mitch stopped and pulled his loose-fitting sleeveless shirt off ^Ö
Jay's was a copy ^Ö and wiped the sweat off his face with it, allowing
Jay to gaze at his magnificent chest, like a bronze breast plate, and
his impossible nipples, strong and delicate, raised hard on the mounds
of his muscled man-breasts from which Jay had often sucked the sacred
nectar of masculinity.
Mitch approached him with the suggestion of a smile on his lips and
the full comfort and confidence of mastery in his eyes. He stood still
a few feet away from the trainee and regarded him. Jay was not sure
whether Mitch was pleased or dissatisfied with him.
Slowly, Mitch pressed down on the clips on Jay's nipples, taking the
administration of his pain out of his hands. Jay felt a fresh, icy
stream of pain. His knees almost buckled. But when they began to, he
felt a steel rod pierce through him and into his backbone.
Parallel to the floor, Jay was a beautifully mechanical thing, precise
in every fiber as he bent or straitened his elbows and raised and
lowered himself. His whole body stiffened into a solid muscular
elongation.
Over the course of a year, Mitch had performed a miracle. He had
caused Jay, through his discipline, to sense that it was a source of
deep pleasure to feel pain. When he endured pain and when he overcame
pain by enduring it, Jay felt exceptionally powerful.
Jay realized that the pain Mitch gave him was a special gift. That
pain was the source of all Jay's power, emotional and intellectual as
well as physical. That pain had become the source of all his pleasure,
too, and pain was the cause of the intensity of his sexual pleasure.
Jay quivered with the desire to have a gift to give in return. The
gift he knew that was his to give was accepting the pain he was
commanded to suffer and welcoming it gratefully.
Welcome suffering. The oxymoron was overwhelming. It decomissioned his
mind entirely every time he stopped to think about it.
I am very pleased with you Jay, Mitch said.
Now his eyes, still keeping their secret mystery of power,
nevertheless, shone with a smile. Jay held his breath. Jay saw that
Mitch's lips were even fuller than usual. Jay wanted to give himself
to Mitch then as a torrent of kisses.
He put his lips, humbly, delicately, respectfully to Mitch's and
offered a kiss in the form of a tender bite.
Mitch swallowed the kiss and did not return it. Instead he put one
hand on Jay's shoulder. With the other he pinched the silver claw hard
into his nipple.
Jay did not move an inch but felt the pain flood inside him and turn
him more nearly into steel.
Mitch posed like a statue of Apollo Narcissist with one hand on his
hip, one clasping the back of his neck. He held his chin high. He
presented his chest for worship. His eyes, along with his full head,
were turned slightly to the left and seemed aware of nothing but their
own power.
Jay bowed to him, forehead touching the ground at his feet, and slowly
drew his tongue around the god's ankles and worshipped his feet.
Jay knelt before him, encircled his body, soft as marble, with his
trembling lean and muscled arms, and took Mitch's unbending and
forbidden manliness into his mouth and nourished himself. He swallowed
Mitch's spirit deeply and felt it recreating him and regenerating him.
Jay slid his right cheek against Mitch's abs and when he reached
Mitch's chest he was drawn to his nipples with an irresistible
compulsion. He tongued and then he chewed one nipple and then the
other. They had the contours of a walnut shell, and the shape of a
small bullet. Jay's lips planted kisses on the nipples and lingered
worshipfully in the temple of discipline.
He dragged his tongue over the taut flesh up to Mitch's fresh and
musky arm pit and began as if under a spell to kiss the deep hollow
with long, deep, slow kisses as if he were kissing Mitch's lips and
entering his mouth. He grasped his master's muscled thighs between his
own. Mitch felt his devotee's hard cock rubbing in desire against him.
It pleased him.
Lunch in an hour? Jay called out as Mitch passed by his office.
Not today, Jay, Mitch said, slowing down and turning on his heels when
he heard him, for he had passed right by his office, although the door
was open and the walls onto the corridor are glass from floor to
ceiling.
Mitch hung in the doorway for an instant, and smiled brightly at his
own happiness. Bill is going to pick me up and we'll have lunch
together.
Jay was happy for him, too. Bill was Mitch's beloved, and more. Mitch
had consecrated himself to his relationship with Bill.
Jay might have liked if^Åbut that was neither here nor there. He came
second, and if it hurt, well, it hurt. So much the better! It was the
way Mitch wanted it. Mitch liked it when he suffered and felt pain
because of him, when he envied him, when he realized with a pang of
the heart that Mitch was unattainable.
Sure thing, Jay said, brightly. You look great, he said. And I'm still
allowed to admire you from a distance, no?
Suit yourself, Mitch smiled and winked, and added, I saw the drafts of
your report. I don't know how you do it.
Thanks, Jay said, grinning.
No, for real, Mitch said, and added with another wink and a snap of
his thumb, That's a great tie you got on, kid.
Thanks, Jay began, but Mitch was already gone.
His heart ached as it bubbled.
He felt the urge to go down to the company gym at lunch time. He
wasn't hungry, his nipples were tingling, his body was screaming for a
workout. It felt good. He inhaled and stretched his chest.
The gym was nearly empty and he drove himself ecstatically through a
routine until his body was ringing like triple brass. In the shower
the water beaded on his skin. Afterwards he rubbed himself down with a
harsh towel and stood naked before the mirror admiring himself.
He had ten minutes. He adjusted the knot in his tie and made sure his
hair was perfect.
He stepped out onto the boulevard before going upstairs. He saw the
main street turn back into highway, and, in the distance, he saw the
highway turn back into mountain roads.
He turned back into the building and took the elevator up to the
twentieth-eighth floor.
The polished black and green marble shone under his feet and his own
reflection was being cast out from within it.
Marble turned to a mustard yellow, plum rouge carpet.
Jay followed the carpet to his office and sat down at his glass-topped
desk, the color of the night sky, and looked at the random pile of
books scattered over it.
Everything was fair game for his research. He read up on politics and
trade and wars, on pop sensations and media gossip, on mergers, CEOs,
deals, and proxy fights. He followed opening and closing prices and
law cases. Society was nothing really but the way money behaved in a
given region on a given population, on sets of individuals, how it
made sets and subsets interact. Everything was the way it was because
of money. He had to know how everything was going in order to know
what money was doing.
He opened his laptop and logged in and began to write. He spent the
rest of the afternoon writing about the cost of the war, in dollars
and in lives, and on its effects upon the economy and on people.
Mitch and Bill were leaving in the morning for a week in Cuernavaca.
He had hoped to see them before they left, but they got home after
three and they were gone by eight thirty the time it was when Jay got
out of bed, to shower and dress for the office.
His heart melted when he found an e-mail from Mitch sent right before
he left saying he'd see him soon.
The street was noisy and Jay felt uneasy. He was standing on the
sidewalk in a pair of low slung dungaree shorts and a skin tight wife
beater, standing in the pride of his chest, wishing to be looked at
and desired.
Beer?
A guy with blond hair, green green eyes and wearing a dungaree jacket
which hung open over his well-muscled, sun-tanned chest held the stein
out to him right there on the street.
Thank you, Jay said, sir.
My pleasure, Scott answered. I have not seen you around before.
I haven't been here before, Jay said.
Been busy? Scott said.
Have I ever, Jay said.
You want to talk about it? Scott said, teasing him.
I'd bore you, Jay said.
You couldn't bore me, Scott said.
I've been looking all week at statistics regarding the War in Iraq,
focusing on amounts of money spent, how it was spent, who got it, and
on the numbers of people dead or injured. Who. How many. It's very
grim.
You're very sweet, Scott said.
Thank you, Jay said, softly, looking at him with receptive eyes, aware
that it was a line generated by the heat of the moment, but he was
hot, too, so he felt its power over him.
My place is down a couple of blocks, Scott said, sliding his arm
around Jay's waist and beginning to walk home with him even as he
proposed it. Jay let himself be led and did not resist.
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